Defining Forever
by Aijou
Summary: When you said we'll always be friends, what did you mean by that? If always is forever, then just how long's forever? Kaori Minami and Mizuho Inada story, made to shine light on their deaths.


Friend. It was a noun with many meanings. Someone who another person knows, gets on well with, and trusts. A comrade, an ally in a struggle or cause. One who supports, understands another person. For Kaori Minami, the definition of a friend was clear. Mizuho Inada. And, for Mizuho Inada, there was only one way to describe the word friend. Kaori Minami. Their friendship had stood the test of time, first beginning in seventh grade after the "incident".

_"You're crying again, Kaori..." _

To most of the kids in their class, they were the misfits. Perfect matches, both lost in their own worlds. One submersed in fantasy games such as Dungeons and Dragons, the other daily daydreaming about Japanese Pop Idols such as Junya. Their addictions had caused others to push them away, allowing them to meet in a time that Kaori had needed a friend the most. Not just any friend, but one that would be there. A trustable ally, an understanding companion, a fellow freak, by stereotype terms. Someone that she could relate to the most.

_"M-Mizuho..." _

Sure, there was Megumi Eto. She had been a friend of both of theirs in sixth grade, and, although she was friends of both, she was always a much closer friend to Noriko Nakagawa. Back then, things had been hard for Kaori. Changes in mind and body, more things for people to point a finger at. Terrible. Then there was her life at home... Horrible. Worse than the game she had been shoved into, far worse. Unconsciencely, her mind began to swim back to that day in seventh grade, inserting in unneeded dialogue between her actions.

_"How bad did he hurt you this time?" _

_"I...I don't know." _

_"You're hurt. Here, let me help you." _

_Help me, Mizuho... _Kaori Minami was lost. The crumpled map in her shakey left hand had gotten her turned around from the place she had been meaning to go to. The lighthouse, where Yukie Utsumi and a few others were planning to meet. They had confronted her about it, but, no, stupid Kaori had ran away from them. It wasn't safe when they had so much trust in one another. She could tell that they really didn't want her there at all; they'd rather her run off and die. The reason why they hadn't chased her, helped her, or anything. Just let her run away, unlike her good friend—

"Kaori?"

"Mizuho!" Kaori squealed her friends name like an excited puppy getting the last morsel. "You're here, you're here, you're here!"

Her friend's eyes went from fright, to relievedness, and then, a mixture of anger and panic. "Shh! They'll hear you." The words were whispered in a way so Kaori would understand. The game wasn't only about killing to win. It was also about the three S's — stealth, strategy, and the smarts needed to survive. Thanks to her friend, she now had those things and more. Smart, intelligent Mizuho... _She'll find a way out of the game for us. I just know it._ Female Student No. 1 took Kaori's map out of her hand, unwrinkled it, and ran a finger along its side, searching for landmarks to find their location. Trees. The forest. And to the west, an old shack.

Armed with a knife and a hard look, Mizuho fit the wonderful description of a murderess. She wasn't one, not yet, hopefully, not ever, but with her wild eyes, slightly messy short hair, and grass stains on her skirt, she did fit the part. Kaori, on the other hand, played the role of the innocent. Eyes a puffy red, hair, weaker with her "protect me" stance towards her friend. In many ways, a friend was like a defender, too. Another one for the definition list.

They broke through the bushes, brushes, and brambles, and into a nice, homely area. The shack before them was a little run down, but it would do until they made better plans. First on the list? Allies. Friends. Enemies. Mizuho took a seat at a table, Kaori doing the same, then flattened the map on the table. Next to the dark zones, there was a class roster, so they'd be able to cross out the dead.

"Got a pencil, Kaori?"

The question gave her permission to talk again. "Y-yeah, yes. Right here."

"Thanks." The fantasy roleplayer rose a little from her seat, huddling over the paper as she began to scribble near the names. Check marks, swirls, question marks, Xes and Os. Oh, wait, no. Kaori recognized the foreign marks now. Something from Dungeons and Dragons, or that new game Mizuho had picked up a week ago.

_"You look like you haven't slept at all, Mizuho!"_

_"Mm, maybe I haven't."_

_"You really should get some. Staying up late to play your games is really unhealthy, you know."_

It had come in a red box, embroided with gold ribbon and rimmed with silver, with a shiney sword and shield crossing one another. The typical box for any of Mizuho's fantasy games, really, but this one was so _different_. Once, when Kaori had come over Mizuho's house, she peeked under the forbidden lid. There wasn't much under there, either, except for a handful of dice, game manuals, and sheets of multi-colored paper. So normal, yet so unreal. Sometimes, when Kaori stared hard at it, it seemed to glow yellow like a jewel.

That, still, wasn't the strangest of it. There was something else that she couldn't put a finger on. Maybe...it was magical?

"Alright," Mizuho was done. "The X means that these people will obviously die soon. I give them the next few hours. Strike throughs mean that the person has died already, in Kuninobu and Fujiyoshi's cases." Kaori's eyes scanned the list. An X for all the lovebirds: Yoji Kuramoto and Yoshimi Yahagi, and Kazuhiko Yamamoto and Sakura Ogawa. She had always been a fan of the latter pairing, even though Sakura was more of a man than Kazuhiko was personality-wise. Yoji and Yoshimi were just hard to look at. Way too sweet with one another, acting as if butter could melt in their mouths.

Then, there were Xs next to Yoshio Akamatsu, Yutaka Seto, Tadakatsu Hatagami, Yuichiro Takiguchi, Yuko Sakaki, and Kayoko Kotohiki's names. She understood Yoshio, since he was just a lame gamer, but the rest? Yutaka would meet up with Shinji, for sure. Yuko Sakaki, too, she'd get with her friends. Kayoko Kotohiki was smart enough to hide if the going got tough out there. It was the type of people they were.

Before she could get to figuring out Yuichiro and Tadakatsu, Mizuho spoke, "I know Takiguchi and Hatagami are best friends. That's exactly how they'll die, because they are friends, yes..." She added Xs to Yukiko Kitano and Yumiko Kusaka's names. Same reason. "Something's going to get between them... Whomever's going to be the main killer girl will, and then they'll die in such a mediocre way we'll hardly get to know what happens." She laughed softly, noticing the worried look on her friend's face. "What? Something wrong with hypothosizing? You look like you've just met a psycho."

Maybe Kaori had met a psycho, afterall, complete with bizarre dialogue. "Mizuho, what about everything else? I don't know what the symbols mean at all."

"An O means that they have the potential to win the game."

Shogo Kawada, Kazuo Kiriyama; the transfers. Mitsuru Numai, the class's very own gangster, along with Ryuhei Sasagawa. Yukie Utsumi, the class representative. Izumi Kanai, the gang girl. And—these two names shocked Kaori Minami most of all—Noriko Nakagwa and Shuya Nanahara. Cute, kind, friendly Shu and the cookie baker Noriko.

"I know it doesn't make sense," She went on casually. "But, they're going to ally with another and find a way out. How, I don't know." She fingered a necklace hanging low around her neck, underneath the drab collar, one that Kaori had never noticed before. It was gold, with a medallion on it. The words on the medallion were in English, she knew that much, but, since she had never paid much attention to Mr. Hayashida during class time, she hadn't learned it. "Maybe one of the transfers, I think. Yeah. Definitely a transfer, yes. And then, he'll die, and they'll do something else."

"Something else?"

Her voice rose. "I. Don't. Know! Just, follow along with me, alright? The checkmarks mean that they won't kill. Swirls mean that they will. And, yeah, question marks. You have that one on your own, right?"

Kaori nodded hurriedly, feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

_"Your wrist has been hurt really bad, Kaori, it might not heal properly if you keep fidgeting like that."_

_"I'm so-sorry, it just hurts."_

_"You've got bruises everywhere, too. How long has he been doing this to you?"_

_"I don't know."_

The answer to every question. _I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with Mizuho, I don't know what to do, I don't know if we'll be attacked, I don't know if we can attack someone else, I don't know if we'll survive, I don't know anything. I just don't._

"What symbol do we get?"

"Huh?"

"You left blanks next to our names."

Mizuho seemed to hesitate. "I'm not sure what to think of us just yet. We've got a lot of time ahead of us to figure that out, so don't worry. We'll find our places within due time." Unsure of what to say to that, Kaori fiddled with her skirt, picking off the dirt. She had fallen, a lot, and had scrapes all over her knees. It wasn't as bad as the scar Mizuho had gotten two days ago in gym, though. Ouch, talk about a battle wound. "Do you want something to eat, Kaori?" She stood up from her seat, gently dropping the pencil to the paper and pushing in her chair. Although she was acting stranger than usual, she still held that Inada brand politeness.

Fiddling with her fingers with her Minami brand nervousness, she nodded again. It wasn't long before the sweet aroma of ramen—where Mizuho had gotten it, Kaori didn't know—wafted up to her nose and into her nostrils. It reminded her of home. Waking up every morning to the smell of her mother's cooking, dodging her father in the afternoon, and hiding upstairs whenever he had his friends over. Twitching slightly in memory, she got straight to eating the bowl in front of her. It wasn't as good as her mother's, but it was alright enough. And, besides, she was hungry.

The bowl was empty before Mizuho could sit down and have her bowl. She rose an eyebrow.

"How do you do that?"

"What?"

"Raise your eyebrow like that. I always wanted to learn. That, and juggling. Rollerblading, too, but I'm such a klutz." She pushed the bowl away. The subject was abruptly changed, "I got a pickaxe for a weapon. You got that knife, right?" Mizuho, too clean to talk with her mouth full, shook her head yes. "I really don't know how we'll be able to do anything with, yeah, just blades. We'll have to think of something, huh? Maybe we should go look for a gun, or something." Ramble, ramble, ramble. "If we don't have a gun, we might not be able to survive. So, yeah. Definitely!"

"That's a nice idea," Mizuho was only a quarter of her way through the bowl. She wasn't known for her fast eating, unlike Kaori. Piggy, they had called her, back in Primary School when they hadn't even really been friends. More like acquaintances, avoiding the other misfit's gaze. It took Junior High to get them together, to learn eachother's backstories and fill the peices of the puzzle laying behind the scenes. "But, it's only a nice one. I really doubt we'll be able to—"

"C'mon! Let's go ahead and do it! If this place was once the home of some fisherman guy, then he's gotta have a gun." Kaori raised a thumb into the air. Thumbs up, alright.

_You're so naive, Kaori... _"Yeah, that sounds better." _...But maybe that's why we're friends._ "Once we find it, then we should really get ready to go. This place isn't safe right now, and it won't be for a while." She brushed through her short, black hair with her fingers, eyeing the door wearily. It wasn't that the house was unsafely structured, no, it was the other kids out there. Anyone coming in at anytime. Anyone with a weapon, anyone ready to kill. Someone, a murderer, someone, a demon.

She froze.

There was a knock at the door.

Someone, anyone, demon. Someone, anyone, innocent. Someone, let it not be anyone. Anyone, let it be someone.  
_"We'll find our places within due time."

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**A/N: **Don't worry. This one won't be a one-shot. I'm actually pretty happy for what I have so far. And, if you are, too, then leave a review. If not, then, yeah, why not leave one just to yell at me? XD  
Disclaimers go without words. 

_Defining Forever: Chapter 1Completed On February 5th, 2006.  
_If one of you has a better title for the story, then please tell me, because Defining Forever just sounds a little too close to my first Battle Royale fic. P

Thanks for taking the time to read this!


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